As novice teen drivers are uniquely susceptible to the harmful effects of secondary activities on cellphones, 38 states and Washington D.C. have banned all types of cellphone usage for drivers youn...

Despite the zero tolerance and minimum legal drinking age laws since 1999, crashes caused by underage drinking drivers have occurred every year in the United States, which is a huge cause for concern for roadway safety. This study utilized multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) on 9 years (2010 to 2018) of at-fault, underage (aged 15 to 20 years), alcohol-intoxicated driver crashes in Louisiana to investigate hidden crash attribute patterns. This exploratory multivariate analysis technique identifies systematic associations among categories of qualitative variables rather than recognizing the effect of a single factor on the response variable. The results exhibited the capability of MCA in discovering the meaningful clouds of crash contributory factors from a complex multidimensional dataset. Fatal crashes happened to underage alcohol-intoxicated drivers who were not using seatbelts on high-speed curve segments under dark without streetlights, whereas single-vehicle crashes resulted in moderate injuries among drinking novice teenagers operating light trucks. The findings also revealed the driving behavior patterns of rookie drivers after alcohol intake that resulted in collisions. For example, male teenagers were engaged in impaired driving during weekends under adverse weather conditions, and underage drinking drivers tended to use cellphones during late-night driving. Targeting critical attributes identified from associations could be helpful in reducing the number of related crashes and fatalities. Furthermore, knowledge gained about the attribute groups identified in this study could be included in educational training programs targeting risky driving maneuvers. Integration of multiple interventions could be more strategic in minimizing underage drinking collisions.

More than 30% of cellphone-distracted fatal crashes occurred to drivers younger than 25-years-old in 2018, even though they constitute less than 12% of total licensed drivers in the U.S. Using joint correspondence analysis (JCA), this study analyzed six years (2014–2019) of cellphone-related fatal crashes involving young drivers based on the data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). This unsupervised learning algorithm can graphically display the co-occurrence of variable categories in a lower-dimensional space by effectively summarizing the knowledge of a complex crash dataset. The Boruta algorithm was applied to select the relevant features from the preliminary crash dataset. The empirical results of JCA manifest a few interesting fatal crash patterns. For example, young male drivers in light trucks were involved in deadly collisions while performing specific cellphone activities (other than talking and listening), cellphone-related fatal crashes occurred to young females with prior crash records, and so on. Apart from alcohol and drug involvement, this study identified young drivers’ additional risk-taking maneuvers while engaged in cellphone usage, including: disregarding traffic signs and signals, speeding, and unrestrained driving. The associations could guide the safety officials and policymakers in developing appropriate engineering, education, and enforcement strategies when dealing with cellphone-distracted young drivers.

This article is a compilation of teen driver crash contributing factors typically extractable from the crash data collection system in the United States. Tremendous research effort has been undertaken over the decades to comprehend teen driver crash risks, as teen drivers continue to be over-involved in crashes even when accounting for the driving exposure. This article presents the contexts of crash factors related to operating conditions, roadway, vehicle, and driver and their unique influences on teen driver crashes in terms of estimated risk, prevalence, and estimated likelihood mainly from descriptive and analytical studies. The key variables are selected based on the number of studies that considered each risk factor for analysis. The understanding of crash factors could be translated into graduated driver licensing and other teen driver safety programs. While the discussions were grounded in crash studies carried out in the United States, the insights gleaned from these studies hold the potential to offer valuable guidance to other countries. For example, the insights and discussions can serve as a catalyst for the development and improvement of driver education programs tailored to address the specific requirements and difficulties confronted by their teenage drivers.